3DMark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is very effective software for evaluating the performance from previous-generation games, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we run six tests. We run the software in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialiasing and with no frame buffer, then we put the antialiasing at 4 samples and the frame buffer at triple-buffering. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to notice that ATI chips can run at 6x antialiasing. Since nVidia chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialiasing to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024x768 without any image quality enhancement, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was 6.05% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 6.47% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 8.5% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX,  10.33% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from nVidia, 18.34% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 35.06% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte,  35.11% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek and 35.18% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from nVidia.

Both Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition and Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition achieved almost the same performance.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 without any image quality enhancement, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was 5.89% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 7.54% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 7.86% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from nVidia, 8.29% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 25.83% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 39.94% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from nVidia, 41.34% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek and 41.90% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.

Both Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition and Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition achieved almost the same performance.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 without any image quality enhancement, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition was 3.43% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 6.74% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from nVidia, 9.83% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 10.04% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 37.59% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 46.78% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from nVidia, 48.04% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek and 49.56% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.

Once more, both Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition and Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition achieved almost the same performance.

At a resolution of 1024x768 enabling image quality enhancements, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition was better than all the other cards tested: it was 3.73% faster than Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition from ATI, 9.60% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 10.76% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 11.73% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 12.14% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from nVidia, 35.22% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 39.36% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte, 59.70% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from nVidia and 60.40% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition was once more better than all the other cards tested: it was 6.07% faster than Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition from ATI, 10.21% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 13.25% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from nVidia, 15.80% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 16.11% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 51.76% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 54.73% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte, 88.23% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek and 88.34% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from nVidia.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 enabling image quality enhancements, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was the best among the cards tested: it was 10.87% faster than Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition from ATI, 22.01% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 22.29% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 24.76% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 31.64% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from nVidia, 75.13% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 84.35% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte, 167.52% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from nVidia and 168.00% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek.